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Thursday, November 8, 2012

reinventing anarchy: what are anarchists doing these days? (1981)

Anarchist thought has made a significant although often unacknowledged
contribution to feminist thought. The idea that hierarchy is
fundamentally unnecessary and destructive is derived from anarchism.
Working collectively is a practice derived from anarchism.

Often we have acquired these ideas almost unconsciously, from contact
with other people in the Left, rather than from reading Anarchist books
are much less frequently read and more difficult to find than Marxist
books. However, our movement -- at least structurally -- is much more
similar to anarchist organizational ideas than to Marxist -Leninism.

Anarchism is not respectable. There are courses on Marxism in most
university political science departments, but none on anarchism. It's
almost as disreputable as radical feminism. Marxists have territories
and nuclear weapons, so they have to be taken seriously.

Reinventing Anarchy presents some anarchist ideas, including anarchist
feminism, in readable language. Some of the essays are reprints, while
others are new. There are differences in emphasis among the authors.

Like radical feminists, anarchists emphasize that both the individual
and society have to change. Unlike many Marxists, anarchists do not see
all oppression as stemming from economic exploitation, but from unequal
power relationships as such, whether personal, political, economic, or
based on any other criterion.

Like the "young
Marx" in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (to use the title of
the collection edited by Bottomore), anarchists suggest that a division
of labor, with different kinds of tasks being performed by different
groups of people, is inherently unequal. They feel that everyone must
share in both "more inherently satisfying" and "less inherently
satisfying" work -- a major principle of many radical feminists.

anarcha-feminism
In her essay, "Anarchism: the Feminist Connection", Peggy Kornegger
calls the anarchist tendency within radical feminism a "subsurface
anarchist consciousness which, if articulated and concretized, can take
us further than any previous group toward the achievement of total
revolution." Not only radical feminists, but most "Women frequently
speak and act as `intuitive' anarchists," she writes. I agree that our
collective structures are not accidents.

The anarcha-feminist
writers in the book point out that the rejection of patriarchy and the
nuclear family as the basis for all authoritarian systems are anarchist
ideas. Consciousness-raising groups and other small groups are anarchist
(no-one-ruling) structures, using anarchist methods such as consensus
rather than majority-vote decision-making.

In
"Socialism, Anarchism, and Feminism", Carol Ehrlich writes that
anarchism (social anarchism, or left-wing anarchism) is socialism, or is
the same as libertarian (non-authoritarian) socialism. Such anarchism
seeks social, not individual, solutions, such as redistributing a
community's wealth to its members. She -- like many other anarchists --
criticizes most Marxist socialism primarily for its emphasis on
hierarchy, and suggests that many radical feminists' commitment to end
hierarchy is far closer to anarchism than to socialism. However, she
also suggests that many socialist feminists have departed substantially
from Marxism by endorsing an autonomous women's movement and by
maintaining that sex oppression is as basic as class oppression.
(Despite their criticisms of Marxism, the authors' cite Yugoslavia's
workers' councils as a good example of a step toward worker-controlled
workplaces.)

According to the 1971 Anarcho-Feminist Manifesto reprinted in this book, the word "anarchism" stresses what anarcha-feminists
don't want -- government, patriarchy, capitalism, etc; the word
"socialism" suggests what they do want -- cooperation.

how?
All of the authors included in this book are operating from within the
collective, cooperative anarchist tradition. But there is another
anarchist or anti-governmental tradition -- the individualistic,
go-it-alone, to-hell-with-anyone-else tradition -- which may be more
consistent with some aspects of the United States' national myths. I
don't think the authors deal sufficiently with the appeals and dangers
of this sort of Libertarian Party-type anarchism, or worse.

When the authors' write about an anarchist society, they seem to mean
an anarchist society without large corporations. But there is little
said about how to break up the corporations.

The
writers are open about some of the problems involved in implementing
their ideas, Gar Alperovitz admits that workers managing their own
enterprises would not necessarily choose to produce what is most needed
by society, to adopt more expensive but environmentally safer methods or
to make other decisions not in their immediate self-interest.

In the introduction which has a list of common questions about
anarchism and possible answers, the editors discuss such questions as:
"How can people be motivated to participate in decisions that affect
their lives if they don't want to participate?" (Answer: by education
and persuasion.) "When does a community become too large to operate with
direct participation by everyone?" (Hundreds? Thousands?) "Is a system
of representation ever justified?" (Although as anarchists they do not
believe that people should delegate their power to make decisions over
their own lives, the editors suggest that frequent rotation and very
brief use for very specific tasks would make representatives more
accountable.)

Some of the writers -- particularly
Alperovitz -- seem to assume that there would really be a larger,
coordinating level over a society of self-managing collectives. Even if
members of this coordinating level were frequently rotated, wouldn't
that still constitute a state?

Anarchists are
urged to act directly, not indirectly. Any government action is
considered to be indirect action. David de Leon gives various examples
of direct and indirect action. In a civil rights case, direct action
would be confronting the person who has discriminated against one,
explaining that he is wrong and demanding that he stop. Indirect action
would be filing a suit through the government. The comparison is almost
funny. If one is being discriminated against, one presumably belongs to a
group that is less powerful in the community. How far would non-violent
confrontation have gotten in the civil rights movement if the federal
government was not willing at some point to back up the protestors? Some
were killed, but the local white community knew that it couldn't just
massacre them whole-sale because the federal government would step in.
Non-violent action, in so far as it has been successful, has been more
successful at moving the government to act (as by passing legislation)
than at moving business to change.

community
The authors prescribe local collectives and redirecting toward
community. Splitting political units into smaller units -- especially
geographical units -- presumes that one feels more of a tie with
"neighbors" than with anyone else, and a total emphasis on community
activism even implies that one cares little about the rest of the world.
Such an approach could foster provincialism; no doubt that is better
than imperialism, but there are other alternatives. For myself, I find
it unimaginable that I could be as concerned about or as willing to work
politically with a heterosexual male living on my block as lesbians --
or any women -- living in Peoria, San Francisco, Nairobi or Leningrad.
But why should geographical community be the most important unit for
decision-making? Isn't this bunching together of very different kinds of
people, with only a tenuous, changeable characteristic (living in the
same area) in common part of what makes the present political system so
alienating?

the right
Occasionally, some of the anarchists' ideas sound a bit too
frighteningly similar to their Libertarian right-wing brothers'. For
instance, author Fred Woodworth writes in a 1973 essay, "even people who
oppose the public schools and never make any use of them are still
compelled to pay for them -- and this is to name only a single instance
of...injustice." Really? What about mutual responsibility and
cooperation? He writes further, "the basis of all governments is
robbery, or compulsory taxation..." Will the anarchist society have no
funds for mutual services which need contributions from everyone?

The anarchist writers' total rejection of voting in the present system
strikes me as an expensive luxury that can cause much damage -- rather
like insisting on being hauled off to jail for a traffic violation on
the grounds that paying a fine is a recognition of the state that
departs from anarchist principles. Isn't voting cynically for candidates
who seem least likely to lead a system into a major war, while defining
one's most important political life as one's radical activities, a
practical measure akin to paying a fine -- or to watching out for
dangerous drivers on the highway?

The authors do
not deal with the growing spread of pseudo-participation in this
society, which is perhaps best exemplified by the growing use of
initiatives brought to the ballot by groups of every political hue.
People decide by majority vote on such issues as whether lesbians and
gays should have rights, whether there should be tax cuts that often
particularly benefit the rich, whether there should be capital
punishment, etc. Only a few people participate in framing the wording of
these initiatives, and the side that has the most money to buy
television time often wins. Another form of political communication --
which was mentioned favorably in this book although not really discussed
-- that some governments are already using -- is two-way television, in
which voters can register a vote on their sets on some issue that has
just been debated. But who decides what the issues are? The potential
for manipulation in these pseudo-participatory methods may be as great
as or greater than in representative politics.

violence
The authors emphasize that, unlike the public image of anarchism,
violence is not inherent in anarchism. Groups such as the antinuclear
Clamshell Alliance are cited as groups operating on anarchist
principles.

Marxists have suggested that the
state will wither away after the proletariat has taken it over; this
book suggests that the state will wither away without being taken over.
It remains to be seen whether a modern military-industrial state can
wither away in either case. Certainly people are becoming disillusioned,
but whether they will turn to egalitarian collectives as an alternative
remains to be seen.
I don't think that radicals
should dismiss or minimize the amount of dislocation, economic hardship
and suffering that generally accompanies the disintegration of one
social order and the establishment of another. Especially in a
welfare-capitalist society, in which millions of people exist on state
payments, the dislocations could be horrendous, and the existence of
some alternative structures may not be anywhere near enough to mitigate
the economic shock for many people. On the other hand, we might not have
any choice about whether the system disintegrates; it just might do so
whether we are ready or not.

While I certainly
don't believe that people are intrinsically "bad" or oppressive, I doubt
that a breakdown of the state could take place without many violent
groups setting themselves up as mini-states or police forces.
"Survivalists" are arming already; more violent, paramilitary groups are
spreading. It is certainly not clear that a violent community group of
people who freely decide to work together (e.g. the Ku Klux Klan) is
less oppressive than a state. In fact, in so far as it sets up a code of
behavior and coerces others to comply with it, one could say that such a
group is setting itself up as a state.

None of
the writers seem to discuss the need to stop violence against women. The
men, not surprisingly, don't see it as a major problem but assume that
violence would decrease if government decreased. More surprisingly, the anarcha-feminists
don't discuss it either. No doubt the male attitudes that foster
governmental domination and war are connected to male dominance and
rape, but to assume that ending the former would end the latter is
rather surprising. The assumption (and I'm not saying that the anarcha-feminists
are necessarily making this assumption) would be particularly
surprising if one assumes that the conquest of women was the first
conquest, which provided the model for government rule, rather than the
other way around.

Frankly, I don't have much
trouble imagining a society of women operating according to anarchist
principles, but I have more difficulty imagining large groups of men
operating non-violently and collectively, without seeking to assert
themselves over others.

If there is a
disintegration of our present state, will women benefit? It seems to me
that that is not a foregone conclusion, but depends on the direction
change took.

Like many radical feminists, the anarcha-feminists want to end power and domination as such, rather than substituting one form of domination for another. As these anarcha-feminist
authors say, they reject the idea of a female-controlled state as a
possible goal. Such a state, the introduction to their essays argues,
could not end power over others per se.

The end
of power over others certainly sounds like a desirable goal. But won't
forcing men to accept women's right to freedom take a certain amount of
coercion? Won't it take coercion to stop rape and woman-beating? Won't
it take coercion to take our share of the means of production and its
fruits? Is all of this simply accomplished by persuasion? Isn't
"persuasion" by our collective strength somewhat coercive? Can we
honestly say that we do not intend to use any forms of coercion? Is it
better to be honest if we are using them? Doesn't using some form of
coercion imply that one is setting oneself up as a state, or enforcer?

I like the idea of anarcha-feminism.
I think -- from experience -- that collective structures work, and can
serve as models for the future. I believe that, if one could start from
the beginning, in children's education, one could teach people to become
anarchist -- both cooperative and autonomous. But I can't envision a
period of transition that does not involve the use of coercion. And I
wonder whether people will behave more responsibly to others if they
admit they are coercing them than if they maintain they are not, while
doing so.

One tactical advantage that Marxism has
over anarchism is that Marxism more neatly polarizes people into
classes while anarchism, although it recognizes classes, tends more to
emphasize the "we are all responsible" approach. Emphasizing the
polarization of power between different groups of people -- such as
women and men -- keeps reminding us that these groups may have different
priorities and different stakes in the degree and form of change.

Despite the many good points to be found in anarchism, I wonder about
the desirability of incorporating it wholesale into a feminist political
self-definition. Does commitment to any ideology other than feminism
leave room to put women first? As the early statements of New York
Radical Women and the Redstockings' said, a radical feminist does not
ask whether an action is radical or reformist, but whether it benefits
women. I don't want to have to measure my actions by whether they are
sufficiently anarchist. Can we best protect ourselves by direct action,
indirect action, or a combination? I'm not sure. If we can best free
women without any sort of state or coercion, fine, all the better.

While a real end to oppression would mean the end of power over others,
are there lesser steps, aimed at specific oppressions, that are worth
taking? Is it possible to move toward ending oppression by trying to
eliminate power-over-others within the movement before one tries to
eliminate it in one's dealings with the oppressor group? In other words,
can we use an anarchist, egalitarian way of operating within the
feminist movement while believing that we might need the power to coerce
men to some extent? That is, to coerce them to let us be free.

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Anarcha: Mother of Gynecology

It was after being part of anarcha.org that I learned of a woman named Anarcha, having nothing to do with anarcha-feminism, but whose story is very relevant. I was reminded of her recently by my friend Will who wants to study midwifery. Anarcha was a slave who was experimented on by a gynecologist numerous times without anesthesia.Anarcha: Mother of GynecologyAnarcha's Story